this, syria's largest city. cease-fire or not, neither side wants to give up the advantage. >> the military situation is excellent, this rebel commander told me. the government is bombing civilians, but god is generous to us and we're gaining ground. we won't stop until the whole of aleppo is liberated. the rebels are taking prisoners. he once command add units of the feared paramilitary ghosts. now he's in jail. he tells me that a colonel in syrian intelligence ordered his men to kidnap female activists and subject them to gang rape. >> we raped four girls he tells me matter of factly. students informers told. they were raped on the bus. there's so much bitterness it's hard to see how the two sides can sit down together and move into a political process. that was the slim hope which rested on the u.n. attempt to get a cease-fire. instead blood was spilled across syria today with bomb attacks in the capital, damascus, shelling at homes and fighting in aleppo in the north. >> business as usual, then. the northern